Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida)
March 21, 2002 Thursday Sarasota Edition
Blank ballots still a factor;
The undervote percentage Tuesday is only a bit lower than with punch cards.
One of every 84 voters in the school tax referendum Tuesday voted for nothing.
The touch-screen voting machines used in the election were designed to cut the
number of uncounted votes. The machines don't allow voters to make too many
choices, a problem that nullified thousands of ballots in the 2000 presidential
election. And they make it more difficult for voters to accidentally skip
questions.
But the percentage of blank ballots, or undervotes, cast in Tuesday's election
was only slightly lower than the rate of undervotes in a 2000 school tax
referendum, when voters used the now maligned punch-card ballots. On Tuesday,
941 voters out of 79,034, or 1.19 percent, did not register a vote in the tax
referendum, the lone issue on almost every ballot. In July 2000, when the school
question was the only item on every ballot, there were 663 undervotes out of
48,529, or 1.37 percent. While that may be interpreted as a sign that Sarasota
County never had serious problems with its punch-card system,
Supervisor of Elections
Kathy Dent
said she hopes the rate of uncounted votes will drop with more voter and poll
worker education.
"I do think we're going to see those numbers drop as the people become more familiar with the system and we continually train the poll workers," Dent said. "You can have the best system in the world, and you're still going to have the human element."
Sarasota's school tax referendum was the first countywide election in Florida that used touch-screen voting machines. City of Sarasota voters used the machines last week, but most voters and poll workers hadn't until Tuesday. The state Legislature banned punch cards last year, requiring counties to spend millions of dollars to buy new voting systems. Sarasota County spent $4.7 million on iVotronic touch-screen machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software of Nebraska. Charlotte County spent $1.8 million on the same type of machines and used them for the first time last month in a Punta Gorda City Council election.
Elections officials say some voters skip questions on purpose -- even if there's only one issue on the ballot. Some want to keep their voting records perfect even though they have no opinion on the issues. Other voters become confused by the wording of ballot questions. The goal of elections supervisors is to eliminate undervotes that are mistakes.
Sarasota County probably won't see much lower rates of undervotes because there's no evidence that there were problems with voter error with punch cards here, said Paul Craft, the state's chief of voting systems certification. Marilyn Gerkin, Sarasota County's supervisor of elections before Dent took office last year, said she doesn't expect a large drop in undervotes because Tuesday's numbers are in line with previous elections.She said that while more voter education can help, "I still go back to the voters needing to accept some responsibility. If they don't understand it, they need to ask."
Gary Greenhalgh, an ES&S vice president and the company's project manager in Sarasota County, said some poll workers weren't taking voters through the entire process of casting a ballot on demonstration machines.Greenhalgh said he will look at printouts from each voting machine to make sure there were no problems with equipment.
Tallies show undervotes were spread fairly evenly among the polling places.The highest number, 34, came from Precinct 55, where 1,358 voters cast ballots at the Venice YMCA. The highest percentage, 13.8, came from one of the county's smallest precincts, No. 86 at the Good Shepherd Church in Englewood. Four of 29 ballots cast there were undervotes.
Uncounted votes
This chart shows the number of ballots that recorded no votes in the elections Tuesday, compared with elections on similar issues in 2000 and 1999. In the latest election, Sarasota County voters approved a school tax while Longboat Key voters decided not to pay town commissioners.The previous elections involved punch-card ballots that allowed overvotes and undervotes. Overvotes are ballots on which voters select too many choices on a single issue or race. Undervotes are ballots with no votes. The touch-screen voting machines that were used Tuesday do not allow overvotes.
| Ballots # with no recorded votes % |
| School tax |
| 2000 48,529 663 1.37 |
| 2002 79,034 941 1.19 |
| Longboat Key salaries |
| 1999 1,824 72 3.95 |
| 2002 2,767 51 1.84 |